Challenge

Michel Desjoyeaux' interview

Michel Desjoyeaux is passionate about racing, approaching his sport with exemplary professionalism. He is able to innovate and refine the most minor detail. He prepares each of his races, on both land and sea, applying the same care to the design and fine tuning of his boats, maneuvers and weather strategies.

Michel has always been passionate about technology and innovation. All the boats he has designed bear his stamp and many of his developments have found wide application in the sailing world.

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Michel Desjoyeaux: When you're a competitor and you want to cross the finishing line before everyone else, the aim of the game is to have all the best tools at every stage in the process. And that starts with design.

What does this type of partnership bring to you?

Michel Desjoyeaux: The 3D software is a highly efficient tool. The Dassault Systèmes teams gave us a lot of help in terms of training, which meant that we were very soon able to work efficiently. Today, we have a product that is beyond anything we could have imagined just a few months ago, before starting to play around with the Dassault Systèmes solutions.

How did the 3D software help improve your understanding of the boat?

Michel Desjoyeaux: Throughout the design phase, the 3D software helped us imagine many things: this could be minor things like moving the computer station, but also more essential things. For example, we discovered that we had to insert the keel ram into the keel before the keel was installed on the boat; otherwise we would not have been able to put it on. That may be very basic, but it certainly helped us save a lot of time

How did you use CATIA in designing the boat?

Michel Desjoyeaux: For a boat like this Foncia 60-ft monohull, there are loads of developments between the first sketches and the final version. There are things that move forward, things that fall back, and things that are constantly evolving. In fact, it would be fun to be able to see all the changes that were made to arrive at the final product. CATIA software makes it easy to change a parameter because you don’t have to redraw everything. With CATIA, when we correct one element, the whole model is updated, so that we can immediately see the impact of our changes on the whole boat.

Did you also use 3DVIA Composer?

Michel Desjoyeaux: With 3DVIA Composer, we can produce exploded views and animations that can be very useful for maintenance and for discussion in the event of technical problems at a distance. Seeing the same things and the same tools at both ends of the telephone line and being able to define each part completely is a great advantage. We will certainly use it.